Love Potions ostensibly cause the drinker to fall in love with the person who gave them the potion. However, true love cannot be produced through artificial means, and thus the feelings that Love Potions create are more like obsession than affection.[3]

The effect that a Love Potion has will wear off over time. In order to maintain the potion's effect, the giver must continually administer doses, or else the recipient may 'fall out of love" with them.[4] A single dose typically lasts up to 24 hours, but the precise duration is dependent on the weight of the drinker, as well as the attractiveness of the giver.[5]

Love Potion will work regardless of whether the giver is present when the recipient consumes the potion.[6] The longer the recipient keeps the potion (or potion-spiked item), the more potent its effect will become, as Love Potion matures over time.[6]

There is an antidote to counteract the effect of Love Potions, but, even after it has been given, one will still retain all the embarrassing memories of how they acted under the influence of the Love Potion.[6] The Love Potion can cancel out the effects of a Hate Potion, and vice versa, as they are opposite of each other.

Amortentia is the strongest Love Potion in the world. It is recognisable by its mother-of-pearl sheen and by the spiraling steam that rises from it. The smell of the potion varies from person to person and is dependent upon what each individual finds appealing.[3]

Use of Love potion

Love Potions are possibly banned at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry[8], but this has not stopped students from making them, or from trying to win hearts by their use. Even Molly Weasley admitted to having brewed a Love Potion when she was a girl at Hogwarts. [9]Normally, a Love Potion is hidden in food or drinks so the intended victim won't notice.

On Valentine's Day, 1992, Gilderoy Lockhart implored his co-workers to join him in celebrating the occasion, suggesting that students should ask Professor Snape how to brew a Love Potion. Snape did not approve of this, and "was looking as though the first person to ask him for a Love Potion would be force-fed poison."

Other Uses

Albus Dumbledore believed that Merope Gaunt used a love potion to obtain the affections of Tom Riddle Sr., a wealthy Muggle who lived in her village and whom she was infatuated with, as it would seem to be a more romantic method of obtaining his "love" than the also possible method of the Imperius Curse. She then seemed to stop giving it to him and he ran off, leaving her and her unborn baby to fend for themselves.

Behind the scenes

J. K. Rowling has said that it is of important symbolic significance that Voldemort, incapable of love himself, was conceived in an act of coercion, rather than genuine love.[12]